


Eliodoro's Harmonicon

by TheDarkPugRises, Xaidread



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Chatlogs, Essays, Headcanon, Historical References, Languages and Linguistics, Literary References & Allusions, Meta, Multi, Mythology References, The Void (Dishonored) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-05-03 21:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14577573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkPugRises/pseuds/TheDarkPugRises, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xaidread/pseuds/Xaidread
Summary: Selections of meta regarding the Void and other topics.





	1. Table of Contents

**Author's Note:**

> Most of these unpolished pieces were previously posted on my tumblr. Ideas initially liberated from discord server hell or other chats are served raw.  
> Title taken from a 19th century London monthly publication called The Harmonicon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that the format of the Harmonicon is pretty eclectic, so I added this table of contents for the reader's benefit.

content categories

  * Void Tuning Services: meta about magic and the Void
  * Force of Expression: meta about etymology and word associations
  * Exposition: elaborated headcanons or AU ideas that are more like concepts rather than developed fic
  * Log: mostly-raw chatlogs of brainstorming sessions



List of Chapters with Title, [Topics], Summary, (Characters), {other notes}

  1. **Table of Contents** [you are here]
  2. **Void Tuning Services I** : Focusing The Void Within [magic]   
On gameplay mechanics and story/lore segregation (The Outsider and those bearing his Mark)
  3. **Void Tuning Services II** : Whale Wars, No-Serve [magic, whales, plot motives]  
On the atrocity of the whale oil industry (The Outsider, Anton Sokolov, Daud, Delilah Copperspoon)
  4. **Force of Expression I** : Poets, Poisons, and Interspecies Partnerships [etymology]  
On the name of Teague Martin (Teague Martin)
  5. **Force of Expression II** : It's all Greek to me [etymology]  
On the Outsider's name (The Outsider|Humansider)
  6. **Force of Expression III** : Stars, Darts, Farmers and Forestry [etymology]  
More on the name Forest Lester (Humansider)
  7. **Exposition I** : The Enmity of Apothecaries [headcanon, etymology]  
Doctor Cienfuegos used to be rivals with Daud's mother in Karnaca's medical market. (Eleuterio Cienfuegos, Daud's Mother)
  8. **Void Tuning Services III** : Sound of Soul, Echoes of Memory [magic]  
On the nature of spirits in the Void
  9. **Log I** : Still Life: Steel Bouquet with Bronze Mirror [au] {brainstorming collab with TheDarkPugRises}  
Delilah is raised as the Kaldwin heir's body double, but she wants more than a mirrored life. (Delilah Copperspoon, Jessamine Kaldwin, Corvo Attano, Daud)
  10. **Log II** : Captain Karnaca [au]  
Captain America AU where the four isles are warring with each other after the Morley Insurrection succeeds. (various characters in roles)
  11. **Force of Expression IV** : I wanna hunt like David [language, narrative feels, minor real world history]  
Explication on the t-shirt painted with an epitaph to Daud in Hebrew letters (Daud, The Outsider, Billie)
  12. **Exposition II** : Martin knows everyone [The Abbey]  
On Martin's network, Abbey business, and Daud's potential for turning over a new leaf (Teague Martin, Daud, Overseer Pradclif, Watch Officer Thorpe)
  13. **Void Tuning Services IV** : The Void-within-Being and Manifestations Thereof [magic]  
Attempts to create a framework on the nature of souls



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOC word count at 13 chapters: 300+


	2. Void Tuning Services I: Focusing The Void Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On gameplay mechanics and story/lore segregation

Mana and timers are typical gameplay components to clamp power spamming. But as far as how it represents the “reality” of Dishonored Void powers, I’m more inclined to think that access is limited in certain ways by the nature of tapping into the void. Outsie says the Void is inside all beings. However long it takes, the All will eventually coalesce back into the void, be consumed, whatever. But there’s also the tonal magic component in the world lore.

Degrees of attunement to the void are inherent to beings, and bone products can be carved in ways to acquire +Void touch & manipulate the reality surrounding the wielder.

Outsie dispenses his Mark in a way that’s like the bonecarving refinement to make his chosen better attuned to access the Void within; the inherent ability however is limited in the “real world”. So, timers/regen, and mana shit. What gives! The novelizations attribute lots of unpleasant sensations to activating powers, and elixir-quaffing gives tangible benefits.

Is there power fatigue and atrophying? Daud apparently has been in a slump for 6 months in DH1 and needs to upgrade the powers that he’s had almost two decades’ worth of experience using. But power spamming. Is it like, +wooziness for overdoing it? How does it feel to drain the internal well of power in a short time? What if you try to “focus” before the timer is ready? Like, you need to be in a certain state of mind to activate powers, but maintaining a level of focus becomes difficult when you overdo it and incur some fatigue. Or does +voiding around disrupt the will in another way? Backing up for a moment: Daud’s transversal appears to stop time when activated without movement, but it’s a gameplay thing because the scripted assassin training event is more about “thinking your destination” as guy insists to not use vision as a crutch or something.

I’ve read somewhere that the actual bend time ability works by drawing the void (and it’s quality of timelessness) out into the “real world.” That makes sense, so it’s a localized time anomaly and not something internal like superhuman speed & perception (although those characteristics certainly could be augmented through charms). But the blinking special effects are something like whooshing in through the void and emerging back into reality at the target destination.

* * *

After thinking through this, now it makes sense why Emily Kaldwin canonically retains Void powers. Charm carvers attune the stuff to reality-warping void frequencies, and the Outsider probably is the most efficient tuner. So he opens a channel for deliberate access to the Void within her consciousness. But the quality of the connection is only as good as the material, so there still are limitations of will and ability.

And he chooses to Mark one hand because…carving the flesh of a whole body would be excessive and human bodies can’t handle much Voidiness without elaborate rituals. Well, I don’t know what’s the deal with Zhukov, but the body horror I picked up on shows the costs to high impact magic without quality preparation.  
Anyway, as long as Emily doesn't make contact with the post-DOTO Knife, she should be fine.


	3. Void Tuning Services II: Whale Wars, No-Serve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the atrocity of the whale oil industry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for The Return of Daud

> Sokolov: I’ve advanced humankind through whale oil based technology, and now I have a business. Here’s my card: Head of Sokolov Industries, Head of the Academy of Natural Philosophy, Royal Physician.
> 
> The Outsider: What you really accomplished was the collapse a functional oceanic ecosystem.

So the Outsider starts thinking about his pension plan, really thinking, when the damned humans industrialize whale oil. Maybe he’s seen similar periods of exploitation happen in 4000 years, but it hurts him in the empathy because the whales are so attuned to the Void. He might consider them to be like very pleasant neighbors, or at least very constant ones. I imagine their society is a heck lot less self-antagonizing than the human kind, anyway.

Sokolov is on the perpetual do-not-serve list for Void tuning services because he’s a godsdamned asswipe who turned whales into weapons. It’s all very horrible exploitation to perpetuate more exploitation in the empire. No wonder Roseburrow committed suicide.

Theory: Exterminating whales fucks up the Void in some way. I recall reading somewhere that the Abbey banned carved bones and shit for industrialized/civilized times, but maybe it’s because the passive effects of scrimshaw possession became more obvious–obviously negative. The Void is timeless, but if Outsie has foresight then the Void has its own awareness of shit that’ll go down. Effects ripple in the collective consciousness of the All, forwards and backwards. Warped frequencies and that kind of shit.

The Outsider gets to thinking about self-destruction too. Maybe always has been, because he didn’t choose the godhead. It was forced on him; he’s been forced to see the worst in humanity. In a way, he even has to live it because of the collective consciousness thing that makes the Void a dreamland transcending dimensions/planes/whatever. It’s like, the Outsider lives in a literal nightmare land and has few diversions. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut of negativity through lots of exposure even if there are some spots of brightness. (Does he refuse to return to the spot between Void and reality where his body is kept because of the psychological trauma? Or is it out of his hatred for the Envisioned who linger for all time trapped there with him? I know there’s also disdain for the new cultists, but I’d wonder how much he keeps up with their kind’s current research into occult matters). So maybe the Outsider isn’t as untouchable as he appears with that jaded front of his portrayal in DH1.

Anyway, so he ends up marks Daud while seeing possible futures/worlds pointing towards an end.

> But you, Daud. You were different. I thought maybe you were the one.

And the way he would have first reached out to Daud, well, I like this meta I’ve read a while ago that in the beginning of their relationship, the Outsider would have addressed Daud as “friend.” Daud refers to Outsie as the “friend that talks to [Corvo] in the dark.” But the friendship sours because Daud doesn’t do anything to advance a better world, just gets better at the same shit he’s been up to. Guy pulls more people into his lifestyle of professional killer, and his gang isn’t run with whatever socially progressive agenda that the Brotherhood from _Assassin's Creed_ has. Daud was marked in 1820, the same year when Sokolov met Roseburrow. Was Outsie vaguely hoping for Daud to stop Sokolov before the reign of technological terror?

Delilah: Was she also picked to help get Outsie out of the picture? But her power set hit him in the φρένας/emotional gut/whatever. She would force her will upon others; she intended to kick the spirit out of a child and occupy the body for the rest of her days. That’s a fucked up plan, so he throws two fuckup decisions against each other. (And I guess it’s disappointing that she also didn’t kick Sokolov’s exploitative employer ass, even if it ended up saving Dunwall from the rat plague through cooperating with Joplin. But: no whale-based industrialization would have meant no sudden overpopulation, and therefore no Hiram Burrows’ plan to exterminate the poor through biological warfare gone wrong. Zhukov got it all wrong. Saving the Kaldwin dynasty and preserving the status quo wouldn't be enough; there’s also stopping the right capitalists.)


	4. Force of Expression I: Poets, Poisons and Interspecies Partnerships

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the name of Teague Martin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece is a rewrite of one of my tumblr posts.  
> This meta mini-series deals with my name headcanons and dubious etymologies. The first part of the title is inspired by a phrase out of Plato's Cratylus, a dialogue discussing how names and fanciful wordplay reveal the true nature of things.

> So perhaps the man who knows about names considers their value and is not confused if some letter is added, transposed, or subtracted, or even if the force of the name is expressed in entirely different letters (394β).

Forward

carvedwhalebones has a good piece of [meta on the significance of the word taig](http://carvedwhalebones.tumblr.com/post/96241506503/did-you-know-that-teague-taig-is-actually-a) in the discourse of [Irish independence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadhg#%22Taig%22_and_the_Troubles). There's also a tasty headcanon wherein Teague has [forgotten his real name](http://carvedwhalebones.tumblr.com/post/128002002643/headcanon-by-the-time-he-hits-his-thirtieth-year) after perpetual use of pseudonyms.

Seeing that wikimedia projects rely on user-contributions, one ought to beware of contradictory information. However, I take a word-association game approach that leaves me open to the suggestions of near-misses for the sake of unfolding/repackaging meaning.

* * *

 Wiktionary's etymology section for [tadgh](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tadhg)

> from the common noun tadg (“poet”), from Proto-Celtic *tazgos (“poet, storyteller”). Cognate with Manx Taig and with Gaulish names like Tasgetius, Tasciovanus, Moritasgus.

Tasgetius/Tasgetios/Tasgiitios was a Gaulish nobleman appointed to kingship over the tribe of the [Carnutes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnutes) by Julius Caesar in his capacity of proconsul/military governor during the winter season of 58/57 BCE while he conducted the [Gallic Wars](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10657) (5.25). Caesar especially liked the guy for his benevolentia, but the local folks rejected Roman dominion (especially because their custom was to elect their kings) and assassinated the man in 54 BCE. Some users have traced the etymology of his name from the Gaulish word for badger rather than poet: tasgos/tascos/taxos. There's a medieval Irish king named [Tadc mac Céin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadc_mac_C%C3%A9in), who is the subject of some tales. One of these detailing a dietary prohibition against eating badgers is noted in [Cormac's Glossary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac%27s_Glossary).  
  
Further remarks: The bounds of the Carnutes' territory lay between the Sequana (Seine) and the [Liger (Loire)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loire) rivers. More on Loire is tangentially discussed in the next chapter.

I think Badger-Martin is an interesting idea because there are sightings of American badgers and coyotes [cooperating to catch small prey](https://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/coyotes-badgers-find-food.htm) (one digs them out, the other pursues). This got me thinking about realms of possibility wherein Ovsr. Martin cooperates with Daud despite their lack of canon interactions. Daud's motto is "Ego homini lupus." A wolf might not be a coyote, but both are opportunistic feeders.

Ancient animal-derived drugs from the badger include its fat and subcaudal gland secretions as impotence treatments. Marcus Empiricus Burdigalensis (modern Bordeaux) was a late 4th/early 5th century CE Gaulish medical writer who wrote a compendium of pharmacological recipes, De medicamentis. One recipe includes badger (referred by the name [mēlēs](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/meles#Latin)) parts ([33.7](https://archive.org/stream/demedicamentisli00marcuoft#page/341/mode/1up)). I really don't want the corpse of Ovsr. Martin to be rendered for witchcraft parts, but maybe it'd serve him justly to have his entrails read. (I have to wonder, was there any Latin poetry that tried punning mēlēs and mīles? I would include an excerpt here because the name Martin has Latin origins in the war deity Mars. Personally, I prefer the poetic form [Mavors](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DM%3Aentry+group%3D17%3Aentry%3DMavors), which is something like battle-turner in reference to the uncertainty of fortune on the battlefield. But yeah, battle-badger Martin the warfare overseer).

Some art historians have interpreted connections between a healing god (identified by the Romans as Apollo) and badgers because of the coins issued by Tasgetius. [Moritasgus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moritasgus) (great-badger or sea-badger) is the name of a healing spring god attested in Alesia near modern Burgundy. Check out one such [bronze coin](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tasgetios#/media/File:Celtic_Coin_TASGETIOS.jpg)/in [high contrast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tasgetius_coin.jpg))

* * *

In a round-about way, I settled on a headcanon that Ovsr. Martin's real forename was something like Owen/Eogan/Euan. I got this out of reading a biography on a genealogy website about a 19th-century [Reverend Martin A. Teague](https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Teague-1547) (affiliated with MEC) who had a son (among others) named Owen. Some names I've encountered that are possible derivations/cognates include [Eventus](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Deventus) (result/outcome), [Eugenios](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Eugene) (well-born), "of the yew".

Taxus is the Latin name for the [yew tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxus_baccata). Some scholars have associated yew trees with the tribe of the Eburones, a major state involved in Caesar's Gallic Wars. One of its kings in this conflict was Cativolcus/Catuvolcus, who is attested to have committed suicide by drinking the juice of the yew tree ([6.31](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10657)). I like this account because of the connection to the way Ovsr. Martin ends up in the LC!ending, and the general idea that he feels compelled to end his own life.

[Eboracum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eboracum) (modern York) supposedly derives its name from Proto-Celtic *ebura. This looks rather like ebur, the Latin word for ivory. Section 3 of Peter Schrijver's article on "[The Meaning of Celtic *Eburos](https://www.ris.uu.nl/ws/files/27080889/The_meaning_of_Celtic_eburos_Melanges_Pierre_Yves_Lambert.pdf)" in _Mélanges en l’honneur de Pierre-Yves Lambert_  investigates possible associations with the word boar. In this case, the Latin cognate is aper; I would be willing to believe this one because boars have tusks. Schrijver's other suggestions include "a shrubby plant with umbel-like clusters of whitish flowers which are followed by berries," "woody plants producing edible berries", and berries in general (Latin uva for grape is one mentioned cognate for this trend of meaning).

M. R. James the medievalist and author of ghost stories featured yews as a landmark in one of his tales, [A School Story](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/james/mr/more/chapter1.htm). There's also creepy Latin grammar exercises.


	5. Force of Expression II: It's all Greek to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the Outsider's name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is partly collation and partly elaboration of a couple of my tumblr posts.

> οὕτω δὲ ἴσως καὶ ὁ ἐπιστάμενος περὶ ὀνομάτων τὴν δύναμιν αὐτῶν σκοπεῖ, καὶ οὐκ ἐκπλήττεται εἴ τι πρόσκειται γράμμα ἢ μετάκειται ἢ ἀφῄρηται, ἢ καὶ ἐν ἄλλοις παντάπασιν γράμμασίν ἐστιν ἡ τοῦ ὀνόματος δύναμις (Κρατύλος 394β).

 

The Outsider’s Mark is his ineffable name and Outsie is in a super luminal state of not alive and not dead enough. Maybe that has to do with having his name cut away. Metaphysical hijinks made his name the brand for Void tuning services. Like, Outsie is the public face for the Void but he generally doesn't get involved in most people's Void interactions. I'm inclined to think that he wouldn't pick up the name again for use in the modern Empire after the non-lethal ending of DOTO. Standing out is sub-optimal. But I think it's special that Daud ends up being the one who gives him a new lease on life. The Mark is a gift of power and opportunity, an opening of choices, a way to rectify the wrongs of the world if applied effectively. The gift went both ways; Daud used to be grasping and throttling, but he lets go of the grudge for Billie, for the Outsider. It's an interesting inversion of this DOTO [journal entry](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Daud's_Journal_\(2\)) addressed to Billie:

> But you never let go of the things that made you feel whole. And that's just another way you're better than I ever was.

* * *

In the games' foreign localizations, the Outsider is called Foraste(i)ro in Spanish/Portuguese. Forest is probably derived from Latin foras “the outdoors”, which is cognate with forum “public market space”. In the Italian dub, he's known as L'Esterno. I rather like Alessandro Germano's performance as a doppiaggio. He's got the right amount of youthfulness or something. It's a plus that he's been on board for the whole series' localization, as far as I can tell. (The man's surname also amuses me because germanus in Latin can describe the kinship of full-blooded siblings or similar kinds of familiarity--definitely not stuff allowed for the Outsider.)

Forest Lester is what I headcanon as the human alias that Outsie might adopt after surviving DOTO. As a Latin student, I favor the Romance languages and find amusement from Anglicizing the dubbed names this way. Within the game world, the pre-homogenized languages around the Isles would have had their own names to call Outsie. People across Serkonos in particular probably have lots of names for him because the real world analogs in the Mediterranean and Caribbean are pretty damn diverse. The island is also significant for having what seems to be a high frequency of Void-related anomalies due to the influence of stuff within Shindaerey Peak. The veil between the world and the beyond stretches more thinly or something. The painting set of legends in Serkonos also has that creepy vibe.

As a name, Lester is shortened from [ Leicester](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester). The locale was known as Caerlyr to the Welsh, and Geoffrey of Monmouth made up an eponymous king named Leir. The account about this guy was adapted by William Shakespeare into the play King Lear. There’s also an insular Celtic sea god named Ler/Llyr whose son in the Irish tradition, [ Manannán](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manann%C3%A1n_mac_Lir), has a job as the otherworldly boatman or something.

The actual water component in the toponym comes from the river--Ligora/Legora in Brittonic, but known as [ Soar ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Soar) in the modern day. Etymology for the river Loire suggests it comes from *liga (“silt, sediment”) < Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie, to lay”). I wonder if there's any connection with the name of the region Liguria in northern Italy. Silted up river banks, coastal mouths, all that. So I guess Outsie is a guy who washed up onto the surface of reality. The other element, "military camp, fortress" or castrum from Latin, brings to mind Outsie's place in society. The gift of life isn't a ticket to reintegration.

Walls keep things from getting in or getting out. The imperial might of the Empire centered in Gristol holds up for a while longer. Will things change, or does human nature stay the same after all? What could Outsie do for a living without qualifications and connections while the Abbey is still active? Maybe he can take up fortune telling or some shit and become an honest charlatan with the way he talks. The old cult figured he had the aptitude to merge with the Void, but what does he have within the world--outside of the beyond, or something.

Touching back on Daud, I did a search for any literary references to a "citadel of David" and came up with an old spot in Jerusalem that's been called the [ Tower of David ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_David). Nice bit of poetry about it from the Song of Solomon 4:4

> Your neck is like the tower of David,  
>  built with courses of stone;  
>  on it hang a thousand shields,  
>  all of them shields of warriors.

I thought about taking up a joke headcanon that Outsie's name might as well be Jonathan. He could be just a common guy, an average Joe/Jack/Johnny on the street, without Void powers. There's also some irony in being hated by a David. I'd also be content with Theodosius as a name that means god-given.


	6. Force of Expression III: Stars, Darts, Farmers and Forestry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More on the name Forest Lester, a fan alias of Humansider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece is a reworking and expansion of a tumblr post. The contents are heavily informed by the previous chapter.

[Judith Leyster/Leijster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Leyster) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Her artist’s signature was a monogram: JL—*. The star in this refers to the etymology of her surname. In Old Norse it’s leiðarstjarna, leidster in Dutch: “leadstar” or “[lodestar](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lodestar#English)” was a name for the North Star, which is handy for navigation since it doesn't appear to move as the sky turns.

There’s lots of legendary people in the Canaanite cultures who bore star names (Ishtar, Astarte, Esther). Usually the star in question is the planet Venus who rises in the twilight hours. The archetypical spheres of the divinized star were war and fertility (gee, there sure are a lot of those), and cultures varied on determining whether it was [male](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attar_\(god\)) or [female](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astarte). It's possible that the morning and evening stars had been considered a pair of distinct deities but became conflated into one and received the [masculine name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanna#Etymology). One of the symbols of the goddess Ishtar was the [eight-pointed star](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_Ishtar), which has become a typical form of the modern compass rose. The Outsider's Mark was developed from a modified triskel intended by [concept artist Charles Bae](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/File:DIS_Tattoo_v1_1_980.jpg) to represent "the circle of life." Its final form is compass-like.

Another leister word refers to a [trident](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/leister#English). I don’t which Anglophones would prefer to use it instead of "trident", but it’s all pronged spears as far as I can tell. In Old Norse the tool is known as ljóstr and rendered lyster in modern Scandinavian languages.

Leinster is the eastern province of Ireland and its name comes from the name of the people known as the Laigin–basically Laiginland, though I don’t think it really matters whether the second element of the toponym is from tir or stadr. Supposedly, the [Laigin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laigin) name comes from the word for spear, láigen. Being the spearpeople is super generic. Polybius the Greek geographer reported that Gauls/continental Celts known as the [Γαισάται/Gaesatae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaesatae) were called mercenaries in their tongue, but the literal meaning was spearmen from the element gai (Gaulish gaison). Why were Gallic mercenaries wandering into Greece? I know in Ireland that young people who hadn’t come into their inheritance or were otherwise landless roved in bands known as [fianna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianna).

The emblem of the Abbey is a C crossed with a pitchfork (or maybe it's a trident; either one works because the institution is present throughout the isles, but they probably do most of their business on land anyway). C is the common abbreviation for the Latin name [Caius/Gaius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_\(praenomen\)), which was one pick from the very limited pool of forenames/praenomina used by the Romans. There's a marriage formula recited by the bride that goes: "Where you are Gaius, I am Gaia"--Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia. My preferred folk etymology is that the name comes from the divinized earth, known in Greece as Γη/Gaia. It's rather like how the name Adam comes from "the earth", אֲדָמָה. The regular guy is a man of the land, basically an agrarian. But I'm open to bringing in spears to hold down the territory, so to speak.

Returning to the discussion about star deities: The Abbey scapegoated Outsie and made him central to their mythos on evil and unknown forces in the world. All the prohibitions of the religious faction associate Outsie with exemplars to avoid performing. Looking up and wondering at the star, the Outsider so to speak, is temptation to wander from the straight and narrow or something. The Abbey's message for the masses is: keep your head down and mind your business!

It’s easy to imagine up all this shit for a being so remote. This distance allows people to project all sorts of obsessions onto this unhappy guy because they feel directionless or have very limited autonomy. Life in the Isles basically looks awful for the common person, what with crooked governments headed by incompetents and a society full of iniquity without social nets.

* * *

I think it's high time that I delve into the "Forest" part of the name. Since the time of the Carolingian period, this word in [medieval law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest#Etymology) referred to game preserves. Preserves for hunting weren't anything new; even big-moneyed people around the Mediterranean hunted at their leisure in private parks. One example: The 1st-century CE Roman writer [Pliny the Younger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger) wrote a [letter](http://www.bartleby.com/9/4/1004.html) to the historian Tacitus about composing more letters while waiting for his beaters to bag the boars in their nets. Hunting seems very heroic, but the hard work was done by slaves and other subordinates most of the time. Big game tends to be a big and busy expedition. Another kind of land that was set aside in Roman institutions was the [lucus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucus), typically a holy grove that was protected from woodcutters. A generic woodland would be called silva or saltus. Frankish scribes introduced foresta, which might be a Germanic flavor on the "outdoors" foris in Latin. Etymology:

> Proto-Germanic *furhísa-, *furhíþija- "a fir-wood, coniferous forest", from Proto-Indo-European *perkwu- "a coniferous or mountain forest, wooded height"

Forestland had been managed for the benefit of aristocrats under Anglo-Saxon law. Managed wilderness comes up in the hunting sequences of the Middle English romance, [Sir Gawain and the Green Knight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Gawain_and_the_Green_Knight), wherein the host Lord Bertilak de Hautdesert (that's "high desert/waste") goes out to bag the typical winter-time game for the holiday table. There's been lots of literary meta on the character: things like his ambiguous roles of knight and wildman, tempter and judge/confessor. (Spoilers: Bertilak is the Green Knight, but I think calling him a devil is stretching it.) I've read one interpretation that points out the contrived quality of Bertilak's identities, his lands, the whole setup of the romance as charming entertainment that of course never really was threatening.

I'll go off track here and discuss the desert. In the early Christian tradition, lots of men and women around Egypt withdrew from the [secular world and practiced asceticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers). The practice went in vogue for the faithful once the religion got endorsed by an Emperor, which ended the days of Roman persecution and martyrdom (but also gave rise to sectarian struggles that more populations got invested in). In the insular Celtic tradition, the Irish found that they didn't have the real deal desert that served as the setting of saint life stories, but there was a lot of woodland and even islands whither they could row out on voluntary exile. In medieval Irish law, one form of exile was putting a person on a cheaply-constructed [rowboat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currach) with a little bit of food and then setting this person out to drift. It seemed that would-be hermits thought leaving their lives in the hands of Providence was a very good idea. This probably explains why the [Immram genre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immram)'s watery wonder tales include visits to hermit islands (on top of these things being composed by monks).

Back to the woods: [The Madness of Suibhne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buile_Shuibhne) is a story about a guy who pisses off a priest and gets cursed with a frenetic madness (something like an onset of oikophobia which compels him to run away from home; he becomes very flighty to a literal degree as he often leaps great heights) and is forced to rove and be miserable in the wilderness. Sometimes he takes shelter at a hermitage and takes off after a night or so, but he eventually limits his wanderings to revolve around some famous priest's monastery and dies there after an accident. Medieval Irish works tend to have prosimetric forms, and this one is no exception. Most of the poetic compositions here are Suibhne's songs about being cold and alone in the world.

I don't know where I've been headed with this stuff about wildernesses and forests. They're not wholly wastelands because they're populated, those things grow, people poach them, exploit them, protect them. The waste turns out to be cultivated, and some of the wild adapts to the city for its living. Still, there's a tendency to dichotomize nature vs culture/civilization, human presence and absence, or something. The seas aren't so barren either, despite that charming phrase in Homeric Greek: ἅλς ἀτρύγετος (literally "fruitless salt"). The Outsider of the first game entered people's imagination as a whale god of the Void, and some think his portrayal afterwards became diminished.

Forest Lester (and spelling variants; I'm more inclined to favor Forrest Leister) is just my headcanon of a pseudonym he could use as Humansider, but I'd like to think all this turning over various meanings and associations shows the potential for multiplicities of being. I've been reaching at my recollections of other media to make sense of who Outsie has been or was represented to be, and I wonder what he might become in the after even though this name's been weighed down by interpretations of the past.

Addendum: Also consider the occupational surname Lister/Lyster "dyer" from verb litster (Middle English) < possible Old Norse origins from lita "to dye". One notable man of the trade led a peasant revolt that led to the [Battle of North Walsham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_North_Walsham) in 25/26 June 1381. Geoffrey/John/Jack Litster, nicknamed "King of the Commons", was captured after fleeing, convicted of treason, and received the penalty of being [hanged, drawn and quartered](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanged,_drawn_and_quartered).

Robert Louis Stevenson admitted in a letter to William Ernest Henley that his crippled strength partly inspired the character Long John Silver in the novel Treasure Island. Henley had been struggling with tuberculosis since childhood, having been amputated of the left leg in 1868 and was at risk of a second amputation a few years later. He received treatment from [Joseph Lister](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lister), a surgeon who introduced carbolic acid as an antiseptic in his profession after observing its use on sewage-supplemented grazing fields. His mentor and later father-in-law, James Syme, performed Scotland's first amputation at the hip joint in 1823. Dr Syme's daughter, Agnes, became Lister's research partner.

Addendum: Albert Ehrman published a paper on the Aramaic root saqor "fucus, red lichen" as the origin of Judas' surname, Iscariotes. He provides some evidence for interpreting Iscariot as a garbled transliteration of the occupational name Saqqara "Dyer". [[excerpt](https://xaidread.tumblr.com/post/174057938834)]

Addendum: City Barrister Arnold Timsh orders the [eviction](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Evictions_List) of the Forrestal family residing on Crows Court, valued at 19,000 gold. The adult children of this family used to share food with impoverished children; [one such child](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Simmons) joined the city watch and is in a dilemma over performing his duty or protecting his benefactors.

Addendum: A Greek word for robber, [λῃστής](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BB%E1%BF%83%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AE%CF%82)/lēistḗs (more literally constructed as plunderer from [ληΐς/λεία](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BB%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%B1#Ancient_Greek) "plunder"), also makes me support the spelling Leister because it can refer back to Humansider's first iteration of life as a young thief.


	7. Exposition I: The Enmity of Apothecaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doctor Cienfuegos used to be rivals with Daud's mother in Karnaca's medical market.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The exposition mini-series covers some rather extensive headcanon work that I'm not likely to develop into a more involved narrative. I do hope others will find inspiration from some ideas expressed here.
> 
> Spoilers for Death of the Outsider

Forward

I brainstormed a few AUs about Daud on this one premise: Daud's mother was an herbalist who was denounced for witchcraft by someone with a grudge. In a werewolf AU, this person sought her for a cure based on rumors of black magic and then pulled a Fenrir Greyback to ruin her life: the werewolf calls the Abbey's SWAT team on her and then kidnaps her child. The Heart mentions that some Overseers were children of heretics captured by the Abbey, so I figure that the werewolf in this scenario would want to prevent little Daud from growing up into the duties of werewolf hunting.

Then I thought about an Overseer Daud AU wherein he does become a ward of the Abbey and passes his Trials of Aptitude. I turned the previous idea around so that, instead of a potential client, it's another health provider who gets the Abbey involved in the dispute, a rivalry. What if Eleuterio Cienfuegos, or one of his relatives, had been her rival in the medical market?

* * *

 Profile: Eleuterio Cienfuegos

[Eleuterio Cienfuegos](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Eleuterio_Cienfuegos) (EC for the rest of this discussion) was a pharmacist and self-taught painter who was murdered shortly before the start of Death of the Outsider (which takes place after the Month of Nets in the year 1852). According to the newspaper article [Missing Pharmacist Found Dead](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Missing_Pharmacist_Found_Dead), his family [practice](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Cienfuegos_Pharmacy) had been established at least 50 years ago in Upper Cyria District. At some point in his life, EC became interested in the occult and joined the Eyeless; he also took up painting to represent the otherworldly dream visions he has of the Void. The Karnaca Gazette [reported](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Eleuterio_Cienfuegos:_Glimpsing_the_Beyond) on a showcase of his work, a [painting series](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Eleuterio_Cienfuegos/Cienfuegos%27_Paintings) titled Impressions of the Void, at the Carambola Gallery sponsored by Dolores Michaels.

After receiving in a [dream vision](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Journal_-_E._Cienfuegos) in the Month of Songs in the year 1851, he discovered that Shindaerey Peak had an entrance to the Void. As the site of the Shindaerey North Quarry ordinarily is closed to the Cult's low-grade initiates, EC stole an [archive](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/First_Impressions_of_the_Archive) of silvergraphs and other documents from the Michaels bank (possibly with the [assistance](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Correspondence_Between_Auditors_\(5\)) of a bank insider) and [contacted](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Letter_to_The_Royal_Curator) Breanna Ashworth in the hope that they could venture into the Void through collaboration. His theft was discovered and covered up by Michaels, who has been [scheduled](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/An_Evaluation_of_the_Prominent_Eyeless_of_Karnaca) to join the sect in the mountain as a reward for securing the Twin-Bladed Knife in her vault.

EC is survived by his daughter, Teresia, who has organized a [merchants' petition](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Justice_for_Cienfuegos) against seizures and foreclosures practiced by the Michaels Bank; some properties are in the process of being [auctioned](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Items_for_Auction) during the game. The underclass also have been subjected to foreclosures, and Lucia Pastor as leader of the Shindaerey Miners Family Committee had sent a [collective complaint](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Letter_from_Lucia_Pastor) to the bank without a response. She hired Cristofer Jeorge, the Karnaca Gazette's editor at large, to [investigate](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Journalist%E2%80%99s_Lockbox_Notes) the bank, which led him to [connect](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Journalist_at_the_Spector_Club) Eleuterio's murder by exsanguination with the Spector Club's specialty drink.

* * *

The Enmity of Apothecaries

I guess Eleuterio would have died too old if I put him in the same generation as Daud's mother. He would've been in his 70s at least when he [hikes up to](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Journal_-_E._Cienfuegos) Shindaerey. It seems less likely for an older gent to do it alone, but we do have examples of physically fit and supernaturally-augmented 50-year-olds who'd be up for the task (Corvo, Daud in Novel #2, and even Ezio Auditore in _Assassin's Creed Revelations_ ). So perhaps his father could be the pharmacist with a grudge. Here follows most of my original post on tumblr:

Doctor Cienfuegos considered Daud's mother as a rival in the health market when she lived in Karnaca. After she had [lost](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/The_Heart/Quotes#Daud) her son, she threw herself into her work as an herbalist, focusing on providing remedies for women and pediatrics. As a result, she became an outstanding member of the community—maybe not in the Cyria districts, but perhaps around the dockyards. However, Cienfuegos was fresh out of getting his degree from the Academy at the turn of the century and thought his methods were more sophisticated and science-based than her imported traditions. He used to publicly argue with her over the best practices in the profession during the early years when his practice was less-established—typical drug monger stuff—and usually was on the losing end because he had less charisma & rhetorical improvisation versus the compelling force of character that is evident in her [background](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Rumors_and_Sightings%3A_Daud) as an enslaved-captive-turned-pirate-captain.

The [Morleyan diaspora](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Morley#The_Morley_Insurrection) who settled in Karnaca (particularly around the [Old Quarter](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Karnaca#Districts) on Clemente's Landing) had a distrust towards Gristolite institutions, including the Academy, so Cienfuegos didn't gain a customer base from there. However, there also were the Insurrection veterans who came back home wounded, and Cienfuegos marketed a [poppy tincture](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Journalist%E2%80%99s_Lockbox_Notes) for them as a painkiller. Daud's mother was against providing only opium-based treatment since patients tended to lose themselves to dependency, and they're owed better than that. She knows what it's like. See Daud's journal entry titled [Cobbled Bits of Bone](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Cobbled_Bits_of_Bone):

> There was an unusual intensity in her gaze for certain, but it came from within, not from the Outsider. It's what happens to anyone pushed to the absolute edge of sanity and survival, who stays there for years then returns to walk among the sheep in so-called civilized society.

The Dunwall Archives timeline reports that an unknown woman was [marked](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline#1800) in 1803*. I'm inclined to use that year to pin down when this rivalry bullshit came to a head, even though I don't think the account in [the heretic's diary](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/The_Outsider_\(book\)) was describing Daud's mother.

Cienfuegos got the idea to denounce Daud's mother for heresy because one of his patients admitted to self-medicating with a bonecharm to control migraines and auditory hallucinations. He directed this guy to seek alternative care from her, and then he sent an anonymous tip to an Overseer outpost that she was a heretical bonecarver. Daud’s mother killed the Overseer squad to protect her client, but she realized the murders would ruin everything she has built in this new life.

I'm not sure what I want to happen next. Maybe she packs up shop and catches a ship heading towards the Pandyssian continent, or drifts to another coastal city. Maybe she goes back to piracy, smuggling, something of the kind through any old connections she's got.

I really adore this set up. It could cover so much: refugees, veteran care, PTSD, grief, cutthroat professional rivalries, health accessibility & quality problems, gender in medicine, dichotomies of attitudes towards medicine: traditional vs modern, science vs religion.

* * *

*Appendix I: The Troubles & The Morley Insurrection

Lyrics from "[Back Home in Derry](http://www.bobbysandstrust.com/writings/back-home-in-derry)" by [Bobby Sands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Sands):

> In 1803 we sailed out to sea  
>  out from the sweet town of Derry  
>  For Australia bound if we didn’t all drown  
>  And the marks of our fetters we carried.

[[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7UWm5nXXqQ)]

This is a song about [penal transportation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_transportation) practiced by the British. After the Crown lost control over the colonies in North America, they began shipping convicts to Australia in 1787 to provide cheap labor in ventures to develop the continent. MP Bobby Sands was born Irish in 9 March 1954 and died on hunger strike at Her Majesty's Prison Maze over occupied soil in 5 May 1981. I ask my readers to take the time to read his [Prison Poems](http://bobbysandstribute.weebly.com/poems--quotes.html).

Appendix II: Naming Daud's Mother

Daud’s mother would require a name if this headcanon were to be expanded into fic. I'm not likely to do a great job at that without prior reading to get into what the medical market was like in the Georgian period or thereabouts, but if I were writing it then I’d give her an alias based on a healing goddess. There’s an [Iranian goddess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anahita) who became incorporated into the Persian Empire’s state cult by [Artaxerxes II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artaxerxes_II_of_Persia) as a member of the leading triad (comprised of Ahura Mazda, Anahita, and Mithra). This goddess is associated with the world waters in the Zoroastrian tradition.

Another goddess I picked from a list is the Celtic goddess [(T)Sirona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirona). She was worshiped in central Europe by Gallic people. Her name appears to be Gaulish for "star" and here's a look at the root:

> proto-Celtic *ster- (*h2ster) meaning ‘star’. The same root is found in Old Irish as ser, Welsh seren, Middle Cornish sterenn and Breton steren(n). The name Đirona consists of a long-vowel, o-grade stem tsīro- derived from the root *ster- and a -no- suffix forming adjectives of appurtenance in many Indo-European languages.

My process of putting together a name from these pretty much smooshes things together: Aredvi Sura Anahit > Ardwisur Anahid > Aretsuranid

A note of interest: there's a song by Miracle of Sound about Sirona as a holy spring deity [[youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai0ufYO0uXI)]. This guy has also composed a lot of songs inspired by video games.

Appendix III: Naming Doctor Cienfuegos

The name Eleuterio is derived from the Greek word [eleutheros](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%90%CE%BB%CE%B5%CF%8D%CE%B8%CE%B5%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82#Ancient_Greek) "freedom." Eleutherios as a name could mean "freeborn" or "liberator"—this second one was used as an epithet for the god [Dionysius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysius). Some significant real world figures bearing the name include:

  * [Pope St Eleutherius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Eleutherius), whose years in office are in the range of 170s-190s CE. The Book of the Popes/Liber Pontificalis has a few stories about him that seem rather dubious. In one, he supposedly reissued a decree to abolish dietary restrictions for Christians on the premise that all of creation was good and therefore permissible to eat. In another tale, he baptized a tribe of Britons at the request of their king.
  * [St Eleutherius of Nicomedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleutherius_of_Nicomedia), who committed arson against the palace of Emperor Diocletian. (ruling 284-305 CE)
  * [St Eleutherius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleutherius_and_Antia), a priest who was martyred with his mother Anthia during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (ruling 117-138 CE) or thereabouts. The hagiography about him seems confused about the region of his origin and his designated see because of the difficulty in keeping names straight. Not only were other men named Eleutherios running around, but Latin translations of their accounts applied the equivalent name Liberator/Liberalis.



Cienfuegos is a province of Cuba whose dominant industries have been cane sugar and tobacco. [The capital city](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cienfuegos), nicknamed La Perla del Sur "the Pearl of the South," shares the same name eponymously taken from Captain General José Cienfuegos (in office 1816-19). His surname means "hundred-fires." The original settlement had been occupied by the [Ciboney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciboney) under the chiefdom of Jagua before Spanish conquistadors arrived on scene and undoubtedly displaced the indigenous population through violence and plague. In 1742, [King Philippe V](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_V_of_Spain) (ruling 1683-1746), a grandson of Louis XIV, authorized the construction of a [coastal fort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_Jagua) known as the Castillo de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Jagua (Castle of Our Lady of the Angels at Jagua). [French colonists](http://www.cienfuegoscity.org/cienfuegos-city-his-foundation.htm) led by Infantry Lieutenant Colonel Juan Luis Lorenzo De Clouet founded the city under the name Fernandina de Jagua before it was renamed in 1829.

If I was going to name the elder Doctor Cienfuegos anything, I might go with Aniketos/Anicetus because Eleuterius #1 or #3 supposedly was ordained by [Pope St Anicetus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Anicetus) (in office 157-168 CE). The name means "undefeated" and I like the image that projects. The bastard probably patted himself on the back and told his children aye, he ran a witch out of town. I suppose that Eleuterio's mother could be another Anthia. Her name means "flower"—maybe I'd have it be Hyperantheia "tall-flower" because they live above Cyria Gardens District.

I also really like Anicetus/Ανίκητος because of the potential to pejoratively call him Cetus/Κήτος, which is a name for certain [sea monsters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetus_\(mythology\)) in mythology. In ancient art, the cetus usually is depicted serpent-like. In taxonomy, the Cetacean order includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Whales are acknowledged as a danger to the marine economy. This wordplay reduces the name Anicetus from "winner" to "whale".


	8. Void Tuning Services III: Sound of Soul, Echoes of Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the nature of spirits in the Void

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece is a partial-rewrite and combination of two tumblr posts.

According to the cosmology taught by the Abbey of the Everyman, failure to adhere to the Strictures leads to an afterlife of spiritual discord. On the other hand, those who abide by the Strictures are rewarded with nonexistence after death. The formulaic blessing for the deserving dead is something like "May their spirit fade and merge with the Cosmos" as spoken on the loudspeaker announcements for the deaths of [ Campbell ](http://dishonoredaudio.tumblr.com/post/148110289581)  and [ Burrows ](http://dishonoredaudio.tumblr.com/post/147553328170)  in DH1. The Abbey also acknowledges seventy kinds of earthbound spirits, which are likely to be fictitious manifestations of the Outsider within the context of [ Ovsr Sturgess' sermon ](http://dishonoredaudio.tumblr.com/post/119620831187) on the Five Attributes of the Outsider. But they’re probably based on Something.

Other after-existences can be considered in the world, such as the legendary giant ghosts at the Cliffs of Cullero depicted in the Serkonan Legends painting series. Void magic can transform and reanimate corpses or inject someone's will into inanimate things. People are known to participate in seances to experience the Void (some do it by achieving temporary death and being resuscitated to tell about it) or to see ghosts. It's possible that seance-goers also witness projections of other times (or even spaces) that might appear ghostly without further understanding. Conscious spiritual projection also exists as a power (Foresight used by Billie) reserved for god-touched people.

Reincarnation also seems to be a viable afterlife by some people. In TROD ch 17, Maximilian Norcross observes that Daud's interest in the knife is: "It’s almost like you know it, isn’t it? As if it once belonged to you, a relic from another life." I'm not sure if I want to trust Adam Christopher's input unless I see more in-universe people expressing a belief in reincarnation elsewhere. Since I'm always inclined to write about the Void in terms of vibrations, I might consider "resonance" of memory the essential quality that makes or breaks the legitimacy of reincarnation.

In the metaphysics of The Elder Scrolls lore, water is memory (but we're not talking about the quack medicine stuff about diluting substances). Here's a reddit thread that ties together lore introduced in ESO with the Infernal City novel [[ link ](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/26pnf1/argonians_hist_water_memory/?sort=old) ]. Tumblr user focsle made a shitpost that pretty much is a IRL tl;dr distillation of the idea [ [ link ](http://focsle.tumblr.com/post/174555300005) ]. Returning back to the Dishonored world: it's very likely that the Ocean and the Void are tied in some way. Whales are a special class of being which exists simultaneously in the material world and the Void. They live in the Ocean. The Empire of the Isles is surrounded by Ocean. In DH1, Farley Havelock and Samuel Beechworth as sailors confide to Corvo that they've seen strange things. Samuel mentions lights and faces in the water. Duke Luca Abele says of the Ocean over [ loudspeaker ](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Loudspeaker/Announcements_\(Dishonored_2\)):

> It's not common knowledge, but travelling by ship horrifies me. It's unnatural. The Ocean is a malignant force. It exists to drive us mad, or drag us down deep, where our skin and organs turn to jelly and our bones settle in muck. For those poor fools who make their trade on the waters, I wish them luck. Serkonos is a land of tall timber, fierce winds, and deep silver mines. Leave the Ocean for those with no other choice.

Abbey cosmology teaches that the Void is the source of the Cosmos and eventually will devour everything. From Void, to Void. It's rather like the real world ocean in regards to being the origin of life. The Eyeless Cult reveals to higher grades of initiates that every being retains [ a piece of the Void ](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/A_Piece_of_the_Void) . I'd say this void fragment is something like a conduit that causes the appearance of the Void to be partly informed by distorted memories. The memory thing seems to have a greater role in shaping the dreamscapes of DH1, while confusions of time in the material world are more prevalent in the Void Anomalies (" [ hollows ](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Hollows)") of DOTO.

What is the nature of the Void? How did the Cosmos come about? As an analogy, I figure that the Void in the beginning of things was not emptiness but Potential, like the singularity moment prior to the Big Bang. In some ways, the Void is conscious--it's "not exactly a place…It watches from within." A [Harvey Smith tweet thread](http://billielurk.tumblr.com/post/85249527349/the-entire-mythos-conversation-many-thanks-to) says that the Void hungers to be filled with a divine entity at times and eventually arranges one for the job.

Why does it need an entity? Does it hunger for memories? Does it want to be filled with mindstuff? Does it need a representative as a witness to achieve perfect memory? What even is perfect memory–how things once were, are, will be. Memory forms in the Void can shift from whole, broken, back again.

The Outsider has inhuman perception but not omniscience. He can see possibilities in alternate timelines but cannot anticipate the final outcome (or at least, the truth of one timeline as experienced by an individual who is stuck perceiving time as a forwards progression). The Void might compel him to watch everything, but what's its motivation? In a mythic/metaphysical sense, I think there's a desire for self-knowledge. How can you define "nothing" without reference to "substance"? There appears to be a separation of Void and the material world, but some areas may have looser boundaries or be more "Void-significant." Cracks in the world where reality is warped.

The Outsider wouldn’t have perfect recollection because underlying the divinity is his human mind, a biased mind. The subconscious has unreliable perception because "Evolution is a solid C student." Evolution fine-tunes some variables in beings enough to survive, and wetware problems abound.

What is a human spirit trapped in the Void? In a conventional death, the spirit is shredded of identity and then merges with the Void. Perhaps what exists as "spirit/essence" might be the Void Within Being that remains burdened by an individual's regrets. Just as memories are imperfectly recalled into the Void, it's possible that the spirit is an imperfect recording of a person. Part of personhood involves how the wetware interfaces with the body, but there's also a social component to identity. Regrets (or other strong ties to things) and the like may cause a spirit to get stuck in the equivalent of the Dreamsleeve of reincarnation from TES lore. The spirit degrades and becomes imperfect like an echo; its frequencies carry and become distorted by collision with other memory-objects and odd mixings. This degradation eventually twists the memory-form into an abomination, like Emily’s mesmerize summons, or like how the material bodies of cloistered cultists bearing the Eye of the Old God under Shindaerey transform into the stony Envisioned.

Similar to the effect of Daud's baffle dust upgrade, the in-game function of Emily’s void spirits is to cancel detection by giving people situational amnesia. Void spirits invite recollection of other things, relying on the suggestibility of the captive watcher. They rattle around other people’s heads and trigger other thoughts. Tumblr user doctorpariahdax has a [[ headcanon ](http://doctorpariahdax.tumblr.com/post/167952527984/daudmother-headcanon-4) \+ lovely [ artwork ](http://doctorpariahdax.tumblr.com/post/169198528709/she-didnt-know-the-man-before-her-but-after-49)] that Daud’s spirit did meet his mother’s in the Void–multiple times, even–and when Billie meets him, he is found fixating on his lack of memory instead because the Outsider radiates waves of abandonment, fear and loneliness in recollection of his own death. It’s a "living nightmare" to be stuck drifting along the same memory ruts, and proximity to this body of un/living pain+despair oppresses the spirit. Daud only gets out of his rut when Billie prompts him to latch onto other memories. Maybe this kind of latching helped convince Daud to forgive Outsie–it’s likely that the recollection of when he spared Billie is compounded by the moment when Corvo granted mercy and walked away.

Digression: This event's significance was weakened in TCM when Adam Christopher decided to make Corvo unable to articulate why in the world he did it. Certainly, there’s been lots of good fic getting into Corvo’s head about his motivations. Not so great: “it was a fucking mistake and I will kill the man if I ever see him because I can’t afford uncertainty.” But I guess Wyman’s mysterious Protector’s League is a big deal for TROD.

The Void's spirit denizens are aberrations because Its intent (if one can call it that) for the project of being is to experience All of Itself before scrapping an existence–and it ultimately comes down to devouring the All. Memory is like…hoarding, I guess, even while vermin are nibbling bits of memory and records+trinkets are all shoved into barely organized and really overflowing boxes. Memory-objects cycle through the states of whole and ruined–a re/wind process–crash into each other, get jumbled up, degrade. Evolution is a solid C student and it’s fine to shelve metadata tags onto recollections in case they can inform decisions for survival. But the Void is irrational, it lies in the subconscious common to all beings, and it needs to have a divinized entity as its anchor or focal point to keep things in relative order. The anchor has jobs like directing the flow of magic and stuff and doing the brain work to witness, however unwillingly.

Memories are assembled from connected instances in a context. The Void is timeless (or time has no meaning; I don't have a grasp on the finer points of distinction) and un-contexted without an active, directive force; intrusions from material reality originate as processed mindstuff (memory), but anomalies can cause the Void to intrude into the world. The removal of the Outsider has triggered anomalies on a global scale approximately three years after (according to future!Billie in TROD). One has to wonder how folks went on with their lives in the last godless era. It’s implied by the DOTO ending that magic will be erratically distributed in the world, so I’d retrospeculate that the purpose of setting up the Outsider in the first place had been to rein in that kind of mess. For the price of one life (and those of the sect who witnessed the god-making ritual--I think that makes a total headcount of 24 in the Void tableaux after mission:Crack in the Slab)–they thought it was worth saving the world from magic.


	9. Log I: Still Life: Steel Bouquet with Bronze Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delilah is raised as the Kaldwin heir's body double, but she wants more than a mirrored life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This idea was brainstormed over discord.

[5:54 PM] Xaidread: Idea: What if Delilah had been raised to be Jessamine's body double  
[5:55 PM] Pug (Honoka): would there be two protectors or would corvo just be both of their protectors?  
[5:56 PM] Xaidread: I've read an HC a couple of weeks ago that suggested Armando might have been Theodanis' bastard and coincidence brought the half-bros together. The double setup seems to be recent bc I recall reading that Armando's face had been on the coins for the past five years. [note: actual headcanon by playingforpix on tumblr was [twins separated at birth](https://playingforpix.tumblr.com/post/155961708787/the-dukes-body-double-i-like-to-think-he-and-the)]  
[5:57 PM] Xaidread: I'd say Corvo would be the singular protector  
[5:57 PM] Xaidread: Oh man what if Daud was picked up as the shadow of the Royal Protector position  
[5:58 PM] thegrumblingirl: :eyes: I'd read the shit out of that  
[5:59 PM] Pug (Honoka): What if it was they both did separate things  
[5:59 PM] Pug (Honoka): Jess had control over certain things and Delilah others  
[5:59 PM] Pug (Honoka): dual empresses :^)  
[5:59 PM] Xaidread: Ruling for a stronger House of Kaldwin  
[5:59 PM] spider: THE DELILAH IDEA SOUNDS INCREDIBLE  
[6:00 PM] Pug (Honoka): Delilah dealt with the city and Jess the Empire(edited)  
[6:00 PM] Xaidread: Delilah gets into the real dirt of Dunwall, dealing with gangs and the like (through proxies)  
[6:00 PM] Pug (Honoka): Delilah finds a cure for the plague  
[6:01 PM] Xaidread: She exposes Burrows  
[6:01 PM] Xaidread: And has Daud give him the execution  
[6:01 PM] spider: nnnnnice  
[6:01 PM] Pug (Honoka): Is it a no magic AU or is Delilah hiding something  
[6:01 PM] Xaidread: She's always hiding something  
[6:02 PM] thegrumblingirl: where's the fun in it otherwise  
[6:02 PM] Pug (Honoka): what if Delilah gets annoyed at only handling the city and tries to usurp Jess  
[6:02 PM] Xaidread: Doing magic in plain sight by painting to scry from her subconscious mind's connection to the void  
[6:02 PM] Pug (Honoka): Expose Corvo and jessamine's relationship  
[6:02 PM] Pug (Honoka): Tell the Empire who Emily's father is  
[6:03 PM] Pug (Honoka): Sick the Abby on Daud  
[6:03 PM] Xaidread: Fuqqqq  
[6:03 PM] Xaidread: It's always got to be the Abbey hounding after Daud's heretical ass  
[6:04 PM] Pug (Honoka): Jessamine does smart things in retaliation  
[6:05 PM] Pug (Honoka): Daud is her acting-Spymaster, and finds evidence of Delilah's 'women army' having heretical ties  
[6:05 PM] Pug (Honoka): She tells the truth. Yes, Corvo Attano is Emily's father, and yes, she still has a claim to the throne  
[6:05 PM] Pug (Honoka): Why?  
[6:06 PM] Xaidread: Ooh, Delilah's network of women being like Burrows' citizen engagement program thing  
[6:06 PM] Pug (Honoka): Because Corvo Attano is now the husband of Jessamine Kaldwin  
[6:07 PM] Xaidread: No, no: she gives Corvo the title Duke of Serkonos  
[6:07 PM] Xaidread: After Theodanis dies  
[6:07 PM] Xaidread: Oh yes, Luca has met this AU's Delilah.  
[6:07 PM] Xaidread: So it's better to disinherit him before he can support Delilah's claim  
[6:07 PM] Pug (Honoka): Luca has been found guilty of heresy  
[6:08 PM] Pug (Honoka): Also pug is hoping for an AU where they get married  
[6:08 PM] Pug (Honoka): one day  
[6:08 PM] Xaidread: Marriage is more viable if Corvo is uplifted to nobility.  
[6:08 PM] Pug (Honoka): So... Duke... then marriage?  
[6:08 PM] Xaidread: Yes. Totally legit.  
[6:09 PM] Pug (Honoka): NICE  
[6:09 PM] thegrumblingirl: another heir might be nice to secure succession  
[6:09 PM] Xaidread: And Daud is sent... as a proxy for the new Duke  
[6:09 PM] Pug (Honoka): Daud and his spies now work for the new Duke  
[6:09 PM] Xaidread: Daud as regent to the future Duke/duchess(edited)  
[6:10 PM] Pug (Honoka): Daud becomes the Duke's spymaster  
[6:10 PM] Xaidread: Or wait, Corvo's missing sister gets recalled to manage ducal properties  
[6:10 PM] Pug (Honoka): What if Delilah finds Beatrici first?  
[6:10 PM] Xaidread: Ohnooo  
[6:11 PM] Pug (Honoka): She believes Beatrici can manipulate Corvo but Corvo wants nothing to do with her after she left their family

On the title for AO3 + describing cover art [Xaidread, 07/04/2018 8:48 PM]

  * Flowers, for the two sisters with floral names.
  * Steel because Dunwall has become a center of industry. The whales, the oil, the steel, the sharp and hard defenses. Void damned Sokolov Technologies. Yet still formed into beauty. I suppose it's Delilah doing metal sculpture instead of stone here. She's the hard sister on the edge, in the city dealing with the darker side of Dunwall that Jess up in the Tower doesn't see.
  * Bronze, an alloy of tin and copper. Perhaps a hand mirror with baroque detailing. The polished surface gives a browned glow, sepia-ish.
  * Still life. Steel. Steal life.



 

 


	10. Log II: Captain Karnaca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain America AU set during a war among the four isles after the Morley Insurrection succeeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This idea was brainstormed over discord. Inspired by people who desire more Daud as the player character.

Mention thread on a [Just Dishonored Things post](http://justdishonoredthings.tumblr.com/post/175465667092/editors-note-im-not-sure-if-burrows-was-the): Hiram Burrows instigated several evils that had long-lasting consequences in the series

> Danny G: I still hate the fact that Delilah is the antagonist of Dishonored 2, it makes all of Daud’s efforts to save Emily Kaldwin null in the end.  
>  Xaidread: @Danny G Daud can't catch a break because he's forever fated to screw up everything, and I think that's hilarious. Also great: Emily got the chance to grow up and save herself.  
>  Danny G: @Xaidread [CENSORED] Emily, I wanna play as Daud, [CENSORED]  
>  Xaidread: @Danny G You can mod your DH1 game on PC to play Daud in the main campaign. Bruh, You can save Emily twice. Look up the [Daudhonored guide on speedrun](https://www.speedrun.com/Dishonored/guide/7vd7e)

[2:30 PM] Xaidread: Daud DLC for DOTO: neverending fightclub rounds  
[2:31 PM] Xaidread: Half the time they play the suppressor machine so he's got to punch though visual distortion effects  
[2:47 PM] Xaidread: Inspired by Daud in the fight club dlc for DOTO  
What if the Eyeless want to make him a weapon. Be some kind of Winter Soldier shit--like, they already have The Chair and the Suppressor scrambles his brains. The TROD novel's oraculum prototype thing might also work out & witches/their proxies are his handlers in his "retirement" period  
[2:48 PM] Xaidread: Captain Karnaca AU  
[2:48 PM] Xaidread: Corvo = Steve Rogers, Daud = Bucky Barnes(edited)  
2:50 PM] Xaidread: Supersoldiers are augmented with black magic  
[2:50 PM] Veslya: with corrupted bonecharms?  
[2:51 PM] Xaidread: Daud gets the corrupted serum: it has crushed bad charms in it.  
[2:52 PM] Xaidread: Corvo's stuff was made from pure grade charms and ultra refined whale oil(edited)  
[2:52 PM] Veslya: I am fascinated  
[2:52 PM] Xaidread: The Outsider gives Daud the Arm.  
[2:52 PM] Xaidread: Billie = Black Widow  
[2:54 PM] Xaidread: War setting: uhhh, imperial succession crisis? But the Kaldwins in this AU participate in secret government things instead of being rulers. Morley Insurrection succeeds AU.  
[2:54 PM] Xaidread: So Jess = Peggy  
[2:55 PM] thegrumblingirl: naww  
[2:58 PM] Xaidread: Anyway, gawwwd I love reading fics of the Winter Soldier bad years  
[3:11 PM] Xaidread: Daud's legendary nickname is the Dysmal Hunter in reference to his Pandyssian origins  
[3:15 PM] Windy Lurk: what about Red Wolf  
[3:17 PM] thegrumblingirl: ooh nice  
[3:20 PM] Xaidread: Rather, Hound bc he's essentially an attack dog  
[3:20 PM] thegrumblingirl: ~Red Hounding Hood  
[3:20 PM] Veslya: :joy:  
[3:20 PM] Xaidread: Lol  
[3:21 PM] Xaidread: I'm also thinking of hound/hand puns. His red red hands that singlehandedly spilled enough blood to flood the isles  
[3:23 PM] Xaidread: Whalers = some kind of auxiliary program to enhance personnel but not at Super levels  
[3:24 PM] Xaidread: Last week I picked up a hydra husbands fic with a enhancement premise that ends up triggering latent lycanthropy genes in Rumlow [note: read [Under The Moon's Dark Iron by Bekaylo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6261433)]  
[3:25 PM] Xaidread: So like, this Enhancement stuff might be like, Carving people to make them Void-attuned and maybe some blood transfusions with Daud  
[3:28 PM] Xaidread: I don't know enough Marvel lore about the Black Widow program, but I think it's like that  
[3:32 PM] Xaidread: Oh yeah, enhancement fits with some of my ideas about The Void Within Being  
[3:42 PM] Xaidread: I'm trying to figure out the political & economic side of things with this Cap + secession of Morley thing. Like, Sokolov would've been puttering around Pandyssia when the insurrection happens. Dunwall doesn't get fat on extracting reparation penalties from Morley, so aristo investors instead of the imperial state would be supporting Anton's research things on top of commissions. Roseburrow fucks off to some other isle before he discovers applications of whale oil?  
[3:43 PM] Xaidread: Iunno if I want a duo team of Sokolov & Joplin to be Corvo's Dr Erskine & Stark  
[3:44 PM] Xaidread: Trimble & Joplin rivalry = Zola & Erskine  
[3:48 PM] Xaidread: Roseburrow as the well-meaning alchemist, even though whales don't like warm climes.  
[3:49 PM] Xaidread: Was Galvani treating Vera in Addermire? Or did he only write a referral to his old contacts at Karnaca?  
[3:51 PM] Xaidread: Moving so many people to Karnaca is a headache. But maybe averting the Morleyan famine of 1803 doesn't cause mass emigration? Balancing populations, man(edited)  
[4:14 PM] Xaidread: Whale pods probably hang out near the sea between Tyvia-Morley-north Gristol during the summer. So Trimble fucks off to Morley? Maybe no reason for Mr Hat to re-outfit Drapers Ward if the big money in Dunwall didn't get so inflated.  
[4:17 PM] Xaidread: Tyvia... would stay pretty corrupt without Zhukov receiving Royal Spymaster backing. Zhukov = Red Skull  
[4:19 PM] Xaidread: Hm, alliance between a faction of Tyvia with Morley? Must be some relations with the eastern peninsula on Tyvia + Morley


	11. Force of Expression IV: I wanna hunt like David

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud, the Knifeman who liberated the great whale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are my notes for composing a little epitaph in Hebrew so that I could paint a Daud shirt for myself. I also gave myself feels while looking up stuff.  
> Title from Noah Gundersen's song [David](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyO3cZLN6p0) [3m40s]

דוד  
הסיקרי  
וגאל  
התנין

The Outsider's Mark is pretty damned iconic for the franchise, but I wouldn't lightly put it on merch. The idea of it feels wrong to me after finding out about its nymic implications in DOTO. I'm borrowing the idea of nymics from The Elder Scrolls because the metaphysics in it seem pretty relatable with Void stuff (including tonal magic and Mehrune's Razor). But it's like, his name on the merch and everyone in-game just thinks it's the logo for Void Tuning Services until DOTO pulls a few people in the know.

A couple of quotes from the interactable hollows:

> Some want revenge, others just want peace. They carve my mark into the old bones bleached by the sun. They carve my mark into their skin. They learn true hunger in the Void.  
>  (paraphrase) These bones and dead things will become devoid of meaning and discarded in the dirt

I’d be a lot more comfortable putting "DAUD THE KNIFEMAN" in Hebrew letters. So I did, but my little bit of language research turned up a few more things. The starting place was knowing that Daud = [David](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%93%D7%95%D7%93), the not-so-beloved of his god.

I decided to look into a historical example to find my word for "knifeman." I've always had [Flavius Josephus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus) flagged in my mind for further investigation because he chose to write his subject matter, Jewish history, in Greek for a Gentile audience. During the [First Jewish War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish%E2%80%93Roman_War) (66-73 CE) a faction of anti-Roman insurrectionists ([λῃσταί](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BB%E1%BF%83%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AE%CF%82)/lēistaí in the Greek) known as the [Sicarii](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicarii) for their choice of [knife](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sica#Latin).

> and with these weapons they slew a great many; for they mingled themselves among the multitude at their festivals, when they were come up in crowds from all parts to the city to worship God, as we said before, and easily slew those that they had a mind to slay. They also came frequently upon the villages belonging to their enemies, with their weapons, and plundered them, and set them on fire. (Jewish Antiquities bk 19 ch 8; see [Perseus](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D20%3Asection%3D185) or [WikiSource](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Antiquities_of_the_Jews/Book_XX#Chapter_8) for tr.)

This appellation is σικάριοι in Greek letters and סיקריים/siqari'im in Hebrew. Jews during the time were speaking Aramaic, and the formation was sikarin.

There was an arson event against a kashrut-compliant ice cream parlor in Jerusalem back in 2007 and the extremists were called sikrikin. There's a writeup about the usage of the word in the [Philologos](https://forward.com/articles/10532/the-sikrikin-mystery/) column on Forward (a news site for an American Jewish audience). The short of it is that kaisarikion was the Hellenized word for Roman eminent domain (something like "the Caesarian thing" in regards to the Emperor's rights), and it got mushed into the sikarikon land law discussed in [Gittin 5](https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Gittin.5?lang=bi).

Sidenote: the root [שׂ־כ־ר](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A9%D7%9B%D7%A8#Etymology_1)/sakhár "to hire, rent" sounds similar, which puts me in mind of associating this faction of assassins with Daud's paid killer role.

Since the idea was to put this on a shirt next to a quick painting of a knife pointed vertically, I decided to throw in more words: whale-liberator. My choice of seamonster was the [Tannin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannin_\(monster\)) (some kind of serpent beastie?) because I thought I could get away with fewer paint strokes than Leviathan (even though Rahab is most economical, but I shy away from its earlier use as a byname for Egypt).

I was quite touched when I read into the verb גָּאַל [ga'al](https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1350.htm), "to redeem, act as kinsman." The duties of a kinsman included buying back (redeeming) a relative from slavery; in cases of avenging murder, the more specific term was גֹּאֵל הַדָּם/[go'el hadahm](http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2162-avenger-of-blood) "avenger of blood". (Fun fact: it took me way longer than it ought to have to recognize what the grammatical construct for possession was supposed to look like.) So like, Daud does the family thing in DOTO’s non-lethal ending.

Without the Outsider’s intervention, I think he would've died a lot sooner—dead in his 20s soon; and he would’ve kept calling for Outsie’s death without Billie’s intercession of conscience.

> I give my Mark sparingly, Daud. I’ve seen it used for power, for love, for money. For strange obsessions that drove the wearer mad. But very, very rarely, for redemption.

Outsie gives the opportunity for his chosen to play as redeemed and redeemer. It won’t bring back one empress, but Daud and Billie’s efforts restored the Kaldwin line. And in mercy, they uplifted each other.

To be a go’el is to perform the obligations of kinsman. Perhaps Outsie recognized something of himself in Daud that led to dispensing grace/χαρις in his direction. But what's more important is that Billie finds something of herself (and recovers what she lost between timelines) as she uncovers the truth behind the Outsider. She's left to pick up the pieces after Daud's mistakes for DH2, but it'll be on her in the aftermath of DOTO to figure out how to save the world. There's a price for mercy, whether it be a quick death to keep him from going back into a crapsack world or letting him live the rest of his natural life while the Void rends reality.

I haven't read any dev-side explanations about her alias as Meagan Foster. I think the surname is weighted towards the [found family](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/foster) aspect of her relationship with Daud and later Sokolov. It's not just about being cultivated into a killer; the suggested Proto-Germanic root is *fōstrą ("nurishment, food"). Choosing a family, choosing the basis on which one earns her daily bread. Foster was the mask she hid behind, as she did more literally as a [Whaler](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Daud's_Journal%3A_Billie_Lurk). (The lore writing feels inconsistent about timing because the gang seemed to have acquired the industrial outfits [after](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Rumors_and_Sightings:_Daud) whale oil factories were [abandoned](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Looting_in_Recent_Months) from [flooding](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/The_Flooded_District_\(book\)) and [plague](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Donovan%27s_Journal). But I suppose Daud's people were kept masked one way or another.) But Lurk had become part of her when she still ran with [Deirdre](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/A_smile_and_a_whisper).


	12. Exposition II: Martin knows everyone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Martin's network, Abbey business, and Daud's potential for turning over a new leaf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece was put together from a handful of tumblr posts plus extracts from the discord logs.

[Ovsr Pradclif](http://dishonoredaudio.tumblr.com/post/125101354767/please-no-dont-make-me-eat-anymore): "The High Overseer is the whelp of a wolfhound bitch!"

But which one gave the order to attack Brigmore Manor? Campbell [approved](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Orders_from_High_Overseer_Campbell) the raid on the Flooded District (so missions: High Overseer Campbell & The Surge are supposed to be concurrent events; the Heart comments that the Overseers are away, and one of the guys at the kennels also tells the dogs that their brothers are off fighting the good fight). Delilah's coven had passed along the intel after Billie exposed Daud's base, but I don't know if informers have to be identified in the Abbey's internal reports. The raid ended in disaster and that may have prompted retaliatory measures. It's not uncommon knowledge that the witches live in Brigmore, since Sokolov got commissioned to make [sculptures](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/The_Brigmore_Witches_\(Note\)) of them for the Golden Cat. There's only evidence of two Overseers on [recon assignment](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Overseer%27s_Orders) at Brigmore: Marcus and [Pradclif](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Overseer_Pradclif).

The Oracles were talking to Martin in the time frame between his release and election to High Overseer, but they evidently hadn't told everything to Campbell. Martin also held the confidence of the Overseer stationed in Dunwall Tower's chapel, to whom he [writes](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Influences_of_the_Outsider) that a Sister made a prophecy to him in the night. I wonder if it was done via astral projection in a dream, or maybe Martin invented that to give himself credibility. Word of Dev said Martin doesn't sleep in the Hound Pits but he has a place elsewhere in the Old Port District.

The [announcement](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Loudspeaker/Announcements) of Martin's ascension occurs in the briefing before the Boyles' party, which is [dated](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Dr._Galvani%27s_Journal) for the 28th of High Cold. Based on [NPC dialogue](http://dishonoredaudio.tumblr.com/post/128422021783/i-cant-believe-were-missing-the-boyle-party), missions: Lady Boyle's Last Party & The Dead Eels happen concurrently. Abbey correspondence sure has a priority line, and Martin would be looking pretty proactive about heresy issues if he sent down the orders to investigate Brigmore. It's a reasonable enough position given that he’s aware of the likelihood that Corvo’s been practicing black magic. I think he comments on it as soon as he shows up at the pub to decode Campbell's black book.

Now, Hiram Burrows surely must have pulled strings to put two Overseers with music boxes on guard duty at the party, but one of the Boyles will comment that it'd be a boor if the High Overseer should drop in. She likely has Teague Martin in mind because he's the less known factor in city politics or has a stern reputation, though of course Campbell's [corruption](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Campbell's_Curse) was hidden by his public face. I wonder if Campbell gave the go-ahead so that his guys could collect the gossip about illicit seances and other [rituals](http://dishonoredaudio.tumblr.com/post/132100122694/did-you-hear-about-mrs-brimsley-youll-never) among the nobles. It's interesting that the Boyle Manor had been a previous High Overseer's [residence](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/The_Heart/Quotes). How much did they commit to renovating it in order to turn out a very fancy house? Gotta wonder why the top dog in the Abbey gets a huge spread. Perhaps the Office was built after that guy's time.

I remember reading someone's suggestion for an alternate non-lethal elimination that boiled down to pulling a Timsh or [Bunting](http://dishonoredaudio.tumblr.com/post/128125156221/finally-ive-been-like-this-for-twenty-minutes) swindle. I like the idea of Brimsleys, Boyles, and Campbell all cast out together in the Flooded District. At least it feels better than the package TCM offered, what with Waverly getting away rich after offing Lord Brisby while Lydia got a raw deal being sealed in her own wing at the family estate and all. I personally would feel better if I could get Martin to laugh with wicked glee and tell me: "Great job, Corvo. The Abbey has reclaimed the house of [whichever High Overseer]." Of course, a Timsh-style swindle leads to the Estates District being quarantined because of plague, which would make the area less useful in the short-term, and Martin doesn't have a lot of time.

Another bit of business Martin gets done: there's an announcement that the Abbey is recruiting children from the age pool of 7-10 years old. The Abbey has already [shipped off another batch](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Abductee_Manifest) of kiddiwinks in preparation for the [Trials of Aptitude](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/The_Trials_of_Aptitude) by the time Corvo gets to the Office of the High Overseer (if we switch the calendar date from Seeds to Harvest due to a mess with DH1's lore). The Trials were a more recent practice introduced by [High Overseer Rhye Mattson](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Notable_Clergy), but just how recently is up in the air because I don't think any other dates in Abbey history are available besides when John Clavering commenced constructing the Abbey at Dunwall in 1701. I suppose that it's a historical trend for the Abbey to step up recruitment calls in a crisis. It defs is a venue for funneling children into the Empire's institutions, and I imagine that was the case especially after the Morley Insurrection in 1801-02. [Bilsenkraut](https://bilsenkraut.tumblr.com/post/109728073289/theories-about-corvos-and-dauds-early-years) has a good meta about child soldiers. Martin himself entered the Abbey as an adult, but he's old enough to have grown up in a post-Insurrection Morley and must have noticed children get spirited away.

Returning to the DLCs: were Pradclif and Marcus aware of boss turnover while they're staking out Brigmore? Campbell and Martin definitely are both sons of bitches, and whatever dirt was recorded in the black book is accessible to Martin. Pradclif evidently had pals who worried that he'd be liable to be seduced into [breaking the Sixth Scripture](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Help_On_Your_Assignment). If Daud interrogates him, he's [scripted to die](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Overseer_Interrogation) even if the witch who blinks in gets eliminated. (Roedusk wrote a oneshot called [Rescuing Pradclif](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8337088).) I've also found that during mission: The Flooded District, entering the refinery area through the door of the warehouse with dead Overseers shows that the crawling survivor has died of his wounds, whereas he crawls and then passes out when Corvo enters the area through the ruined houses with weepers nearby.

Gameplay-wise, Daud can prevent Pradclif's death by sticking him with a sleep dart before he gets screaming. It's pretty extra for Daud to go out of his way to take an Overseer back to Lizzy's ship after the witches are dealt with. Mission: Stay of Execution gives a special action for rescuing Watch Officer Thorpe. I haven't read anything about what happens to the guy afterwards. Where does a dishonored guard go after being sentenced for [high treason](http://dishonoredaudio.tumblr.com/post/133812561022/corporal-hamrick-you-failed-to-appear-for-service)? Could he make use of Martin’s network to get a safe house, or does Martin do something that amounts to shooting him in the back for his services? Another loose end and all that, even though Thorpe kept his mouth shut about his accomplices. The alternative of going with Daud’s gang also looks bad. A Whaler could put a knife in his throat or throw him into the holding warehouse cell (psh, it looks more like a repurposed barrel) for questioning because the gang members [worry](http://dishonoredaudio.tumblr.com/post/119868452425/corvos-coming-for-us-daud-and-hes-got-nothing) about Corvo’s vengeance during mission:Choosing Your Mark. And Daud ditches everyone in the end of it anyway, so any protection he could command goes away with him. On the other hand, in TROD Ch 24 Daud has a contact in the Grand Guard, Officer Sierra Esquivel, who is the daughter of one of his dead lieutenants. He even arranged for the family to get to Serkonos way back during the earlier Dunwall years (1820-36).

**Author's Note:**

> The mind never rests. Future updates are possible.


End file.
